Tag Archives: sketching in Madeira

Yet more from Madeira… Fellow customers at our local bakery/cafe, a first floor view looking down the street we were staying in to the mountains beyond, and a much extended house on a steep street nearby (slightly Seuss-like with tower, external … Continue reading →

Back to Madeira with some sketches from the Frederico de Freitas museum in Funchal. A small ivory carving (with a lamb on the shoulder and one on the knee, St Agnes?), figures on tiles, and a C19th engraving of Madeira printed in … Continue reading →

More from Madeira, three general views around the capital. The first is from a rocky beach (they’re all rocky on Madeira…) near the harbour, buildings crowding the crumbling cliff. Then looking down a central street towards the surrounding hills, cloud … Continue reading →

Madeira is famous for its ‘levadas’, over 2,000km of hand-built irrigation channels with narrow paths alongside that snake along the contours of the hills, bringing water from the rainy Northern hilltops to the fertile Southern slopes. Our first attempt to walk them … Continue reading →

People watching in Madeira, where the fine weather encourages lots of public loafing; very helpful for sketchers! The first three were done using Derwent Inktense pencils. They’re very smooth to draw with, quick to capture an expressive line, non-smudging (the key … Continue reading →

Just back from Madeira, a beautiful sub-tropical Portuguese island, 360 miles west of Morocco. Many sketches to share, starting with the main fruit and flower market in Funchal, the capital. I used an acetate grid to mark out key lines, then sketched fairly loosely in … Continue reading →